Richard Morgan interview

[John BAILEY]

Geez, who knows TRP's take on anything? He never returns my calls.

I like Ray's comment re: Math - "*That* people are "doing math" -- that is important.  But no so much the details of the math they are doing."

I think it's important that Pynchon includes so much magic and mysticism alongside hard history, science, allusions to classic literature, film etc. *That* this stuff is included might be as important as exactly what is included.

I think that in this sense, both Pynchon and Murakami (and a lot of other contemporary authors) are consciously reacting to, and offering alternatives to, the naïve realist model of fiction which dominated an earlier era. Magical realism in the tradition of Marquez, Rushdie and the like can often be read as a postcolonial response to the official and histories imposed on peoples previously defined by narratives written by outsiders (though Rushdie kind of complicates that 'outsider' status by kinda-sorta occupying it himself).

Pynchon and Murakami's magical realism might not be so politically oriented, or at least not in the same way.

-----Original Message-----
From: Chris Abraham [mailto:cabraham at abrahamharrison.com] 
Sent: Monday, 30 April 2007 11:08 AM
To: John BAILEY
Subject: Re: Richard Morgan interview

I have a naive question: what is TRP's take on magic, spirit, ghosts, and synchronicity? I know we cannot compare them, but while TRP may use surreal or unreal aspects in his story, or play with timespace, Big Concepts, and sentient dogs, I don't think he ever really deals with the concepts such as "magical realism" or whatever the Japanese version is called.

Teach me, please. Enlighten me.

John BAILEY wrote:
> Murakami and Pynchon, apples and oranges. They're two of my favourite 
> authors - probably my two favourite authors - but I agree that there's 
> rarely a reason to use their names in the same sentence. If you don't 
> like what M does with Wind-Up Bird, you probably won't like anything 
> else he's written.


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